Heat. Bodies gleaming with sweat and sun. Day pressing itself against everything: unforgiving. I am walking down this street thinking of another walk in another city, of a boy who never makes it home. I, too, am armed with thirst and a craving for sweetness; I, too, wear his brown skin and do not belong here, to this city of leisure and narrow streets. Fear passes through me, a phantom, and is gone. Overhead, flags flutter in the thick, salty air. Not guilty, they say. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty.

Beginning is red—a door, a car, the bowed lips, a nameless flower.

*

I have so few names for things here, I fall into silence

Two men, black as God,their shirts golden as morning. No words between us.

*

So much passes in the glancethat the throat cannot muster.

Three headless torsos in a store window. A lighttrick makes men of them.